Tag Archives: Phantom of the Opera

After over 8 years of continuous operation, it saddens me to announce that Phantom Rose in Second Life will be closing down in December.

The Phantom Rose Opera House was one of the first of its kind that opened in Second Life, hosting many new artists both in Opera and other types of performances. My website, http://www.phantomrose.com has some videos and many photos.

Due to the much greater cost of Second Life, I have finally “hit the wall” financially and I can no longer justify trying to pay such a large amount of money here, when at a more reasonable rate I have more prims, more land and more creative opportunities at Inworldz where I have also been set up since 2010. You may have seen some of my posts about it. Last year, I split my website into either SL or Inworldz on the splash page and my blog serves both grids.

It’s sad to have to close Phantom Rose SL. For over 8 years it has been my home, my creative muse, a wellspring of numerous friendships and the place of so many great memories!

I want to give all of us one last Christmas season at Phantom Rose SL. To that end, we will be doing a 12 days of Christmas event bonanza! I hope many of you will take the time to come say goodbye to Phantom Rose SL!

I will be kicking off the celebration on Dec 1st with a fan favorite: A Trans-Siberian Christmas music Lightshow! Check out our calendar on the website for all the events, concluding with a Snow Flake Ball at the Opera House on the 12th. I have also designed a commemorative Phantom Rose ornament that I will be giving out as a free goodbye gift to all our visitors. I will be closing Phantom Rose on 12/27/15.

It has been a joy to offer you my creative vision. And the many kind words of encouragement from so many of you, have meant so much to me!

Phantom Rose lives on at InWorldz – 5 sims of my creations and more immersive than ever. Stop by and see what I’ve been up to.

Back in 2006, I had most of a mainland sim named Gabara, and I called my area, Dragon Heart Province. There was a huge cove and I built a medieval-ish area, with pretty castles that I rented out. It stayed mostly filled and I made some great friends along the way.

Cove, Dragons Heart Province

Entrance to Jousting and Fencing area

But Mainland was always problematic… fugly neighbors, griefers, lack of control over your land, Linden owned roads and abandoned land, etc. So I started thinking of owning a private sim. In the summer of 2007, I decided to rent a sim and see how I liked it. It was expensive, but since I was renting and had no up front costs (those huge set up fees that LL charged) I felt it was worth the experiment. So that July I rented a sim and Phantom Rose was born.

I wanted to give my renters privacy and I love water, so I came up with the idea to give each castle its own island complete with a private beach. I wanted to make it easy for people to know what was open, so I designed a central landing point with a rental “board” that was oriented to the sim in north, south, east and west. I put the rental boxes for the castles on each side correspondingly.

Now when I started to design Phantom Rose, I wanted to do something different. Since I have always been a big fan of 70’s gothic romance books, Anne Rice vampires and Phantom of the Opera… I came up with an idea of a gothic romance sim. I knew I wanted an Opera House for the Phantom, but I also wanted the spooky factor, so I built the Graveyard first. I found some cool scripted piranha fish, that actually will bite you and simulate blood in water… so cool. They went into the Graveyard cove. The Graveyard came out really well and has been visited by 100’s of people over the years and was voted in the top 10 gothic graveyards in SL, according to the slGoth Magazine. (great magazine, btw)

I didn’t build the Opera House til last. It was very intimidating build for me. I was so afraid it would end up being lame or just not majestic enough. But over the years, I have had many compliments and great positive feedback and although it is a simple build, I think it has its own granduer and beauty. Many visitors never find the Phantom’s Lair that lies beneath the Opera House, which is such a shame, since its one of my most favorite spots! It even has a moving wall.

So after the launch of my new sim, I was gratified to have many new renters. Around December 2007, I was offered an opportunity to buy a sim from an old friend who wanted to sell. The price was right and I decided to jump for it. This necessitated my rebuilding the entire Phantom Rose in a month and moving all my renters. Yes, you heard me right.

So I developed a strategy where I got the raw file from my landlord and applied that to my new sim. Then since I had built everything on the island, I copied each build and set it up on the new sim. Quite an endeavor. Then once Phantom Rose was totally recreated, I moved my renters. It was a huge undertaking that I am proud to say went VERY smoothly. And I didn’t lose any of my renters in the process.

Over the years, many things changed. I closed Dragons Heart and sold the mainland. Phantom Rose evolved. I took out some of the castles and moved my elopements to the sim to help pay for the enormous land fees in SL. I added Pirate Island and the Mermaid Grotto, the Cathedral, the ski lifts to Skate Mountain, and many other things. And I branched out to other V world grids, like Inworldz, where I built a new, different Phantom Rose. (see website, http://www.phantomrose.com).

Mermaid Grotto

But the central hub of Phantom Rose, has always been the Opera House. I am very proud that the Opera House has been a place of acceptance and creativity for many, many new artists for Eight Years… And it still stands after all this time! My favorite time for the Opera House is Christmas!

I have forged many great friendships thru the Opera House. You all know who you are! Smiles. Eight years… they have flown by. I celebrate my 10th SL Rez day this August!

2 Day old Lannorra Aug 2005

I want to thank all of my supporters thru the years. I hope you will all take time to stop by Phantom Rose for one of our birthday events or just to visit. This next 3 to 4 months will be very busy for me. I have a lot of RL going on. So if you don’t see me around, don’t worry. I am still watching over Phantom Rose and will be in and out.

Winter snow has fallen, and Phantom Rose @ Second Life is getting ready for the Holiday season! We have some great events lined up. We kicked off our Holiday events last night with a fun Skating party at Mountain Skate Park!

One of the fun things about this park is the chair lifts you can take to get there. You can grab a lift from the Main entrance of Phantom Rose

or from Swan Lake, near the Christmas Tree

Both are a great ride that gives you panoramic views of Phantom Rose in all her winter glory!

Tonight (6 pm slt) we will be having the first of our annual Trans Siberian Orchestra Christmas Music Lightshows! If you have never attended, then you are missing out on a great show. The show is held just outside the Opera House, on a floating blue glass platform that puts you IN the lightshow itself!

Saturday brings a special treat! Our new Opera House director, Tenshi Domenici, will be directing a special Christmas Ballet with Santa’s Toys to Christmas Music on the frozen Swan Lake! Great music and beautiful Ballet; who could ask for more? This event preceeds our Snow Flake Ball. Dancing on the veranda of the Opera house! The Ballet is 4-5 pm slt and the Ball immediately follows from 5-6 pm slt.

Then on Sunday, Dec 7th at noon, we will be presenting the latest in our Phantom of the Opera – Interactive Preview. We are working hard to get this show together and are pleased to give you some sneak peeks of the beautiful sets and audience participation!

Monday brings an encore of the Christmas Ballet, 5-6 pm slt. And Tuesday, we are so excited to have Live singer, Dilah Halorstar, singing at the Opera house from 2-3 pm slt. Dilah is a long time favorite for our guests and has been singing at the Opera House for most of Phantom Rose’s 7 years. Please join us for this fabulous entertainer!

Thursday, Dec 11th from 4-5 pm slt, we have a special treat! DJ Drax will be hosting an Elvis Blue Hawaii Christmas at Pirate Island. Don your aloha shirt and flip flops for a fun event of Elvis and Christmas!

Our Holiday season of events Finale will be an encore of the fabulous TSO Lightshow on Friday, Dec 12th, from 4-5 pm slt.

I hope to see many of our Phantom Rose family and friends. We are in our 8th year here at Phantom Rose! We wish you all a joyous Holiday season and a wonderful New Year!

The theater troupe is hard at work on our latest production, The Phantom of the Opera – Interactive. Its a unique new take on an old story with lots of audience participation and in some cases, the audience is a part of the action! Think of it as: The Phantom meets Rocky Horror Picture show.

Our theater troupe pauses for a picture.

We will be doing a preview of a few scenes coming up in October, so please watch the calendar, as you do not want to miss this special presentation.

We still have some of the supporting roles open, so if you have ever wanted to get involved in the theater, now is a great time. Please contact either Tenshi Domenici, Opera House Director or Lannorra Sion, Owner/Creator, in Second Life.

Now that Phantom Rose is on two grids (Second Life and Inworldz) I felt it was time to expand a bit. There is so much more going on now and I want all Phantom Rose fans to have as much access as possible.

As many of you know, Second Life is not a game. It is, as I like to call it, a creative environment. You can build and make anything you want; anything of your imagination. I am happy and proud to say that Phantom Rose is my vision, my creation, my dream.

And along with the sim, the Phantom Rose Opera House keeps on going. Over the years we have had the glory years (2007-2009) and the not so active years. This past year a new spark lit up the Opera House… Tenshi Domenici! Tenshi came to me with a request. He, like many others, loved the Phantom of the Opera and he wanted to do a production based on the story. To be honest, I was skeptical. Over the years I’ve had many such requests, which mostly ended up with people drifting away when the actual work needed to be done. But always the optimist, I welcomed his collaboration and offered my support and guidance. Much to my delighted surprise, not only did Tenshi start working, he stayed and worked some more! Until this time when we actually have a production under way for this coming October. Due to his continued dedication to the Opera House and Phantom Rose, I offered him the position of Opera House Director and he accepted.

He is following in the footsteps of two other great Directors, Bart and Isobel. Bart was the first director and he brought the Opera House to a place I did not even realize it could go. Although I had built it, I had no real plan for what to do with it, besides making it a place where new artists could get a start. Bart was a huge Opera fan and he taught me to appreciate that genre of music and I admired his passion and dedication tremendously. Bart cared so much about the Opera House and he brought a real sense of authenticity to it. Isobel was a good friend for many years and she stepped in to help me when I felt exhausted and bereft of ideas and inspiration. A music teacher with a bunch of knowledge and talent, she was a major force in getting our production of the Opera Romeo and Juliet on stage. It was ambitious, it was wonderful and it was woefully under attended. It was a shame since we put so much of ourselves in to the production. But I don’t regret a moment of that work.

Seven years… seven years and Phantom Rose and the Opera House are still standing. I want to thank the hundreds of people that have visited Phantom Rose and the Opera House. So many people have left me IMs of thanks for giving them such a wonderful place to go and a few donations. I thank you all.

We have a few more events this month to celebrate this amazing milestone and I hope you will check the calendar and join us.

Yes, how time flies! But yes, one year ago August I changed the name of my sim to Phantom Rose and committed to developing a new Phantom Rose at Inworldz. I decided I did not want to do a replica of what I had done in SL, which was castles and a gothic romance theme with Phantom of the Opera as its heart, with a little Anne Rice thrown in. The Sim is all about New Orleans and the Bayou, with brand new builds; some of my best, I think!